Glass talks to Ying Kwok about Say to Day, her online arts collaboration with Yutaka Inagawa that explores the virtual environment in a unique way
LAUNCHED last December, Say to Day is a digital collaboration between curator Ying Kwok and artist Yutaka Inagawa – a mix of visual and textual material across their website and Instagram account that form the project. Each platform is populated by photographs, film and graphics amassed over the past 10 years.
The website is categorised into titled tabs. Click on one, and you scroll through these visual works: a digital collage of photographs, text and film, organised in grids or spread sporadically across the page, bound by a backdrop of sweeping lines to form a whole. The Instagram functions visually both as a page, and as individual groups of images.
The cover photos of each collection of works form a greater image in themselves, demonstrating an exciting utilisation of Instagram’s layout. The works are intimate and boldly graphic all at once; they document the everyday and explore the digital scape.
Image from Say to Day – the collaboration between Ying Kwok and artist Yutaka Inagawa
“We both really appreciate the experience of someone that grew up in our own city, and have that shared experience in the UK … [We share] a lot of these experiences and how we see our own culture, and how we absorbed it …of being in foreign countries carrying our own past history and culture.” Inagawa invited her to do a residency in Onomichi, Japan, in 2019.
“I think we probably need to start with a little bit of background on how we met”, Kwok says when I call her in Hong Kong. For this is a project that is rooted in friendship. Inagawa and Kwok met during their MA in at Chelsea School of Art in London.
Both were practicing visual artists before Kwok branched into curation. Around 15 years after university, they were reunited in Japan, where Inagawa is based, after Kwok posted on social media about her work there.
Image from Say to Day – the collaboration between Ying Kwok and artist Yutaka Inagawa
“We both really appreciate the experience of someone that grew up in our own city, and have that shared experience in the UK … [We share] a lot of these experiences and how we see our own culture, and how we absorbed it … of being in foreign countries carrying our own past history and culture.” Inagawa invited her to do a residency in Onomichi, Japan, in 2019.
“It was a short residency where I shared how I see collaboration and what collaboration means, and how it should be planned, or should be taken into consideration from the very beginning when I start to curate a project.”
Image from Say to Day – the collaboration between Ying Kwok and artist Yutaka Inagawa
Kwok and Inagawa’s working relationship was forged in this exploration of collaboration. This theme was later mapped onto Say to Day, a project that explores the roles of curator and artist, and of the viewer too. The project is a manifestation of their joint exploration of the capabilities and complexities of presenting art through, and as, a digital platform, and is coloured by their multicultural influences and experiences.
“I think in a moment we both knew there was something shared, whether I’m curating, or he as an artist is curating, there is a lot in common.” In Kwok’s eyes, the role of the curator and of the artist are maintained by a shifting, porous boundary, as Say to Day exemplifies.
Image from Say to Day – the collaboration between Ying Kwok and artist Yutaka Inagawa
The images themselves are largely sourced from Inagawa’s personal archive. They conjure the everyday, plucked from time spent studying in London, snapshots taken by friends, memoranda from travels; each made almost fantastical by their graphic rendering. Kwok’s work is woven throughout: “For example, we took images, notes I had made, or floor plans I had designed. I would give him some of this material.”
Kwok emphasises that as they worked on this project, other projects and experiences, continued, and so made their mark, too. She describes their ongoing WhatsApp chat as almost an extension of the project, or at least as a contributor. The project’s threads can be traced through the pair’s digital communication over the last decade.
Image from Say to Day – the collaboration between Ying Kwok and artist Yutaka Inagawa
In the wake of the pandemic, many physical exhibitions and creative projects have been pushed to online platforms. I asked Kwok if this had been the case with Say to Day. “When Covid-19 broke out, we just said that we don’t want to wait another year … So whether we had a physical exhibition, or whether we saw the online, the digital platform, as a physical space to work with, I think is all the same … We can still do a lot of the experiment and use our dialogue to create something that will be looking back into our practice as curator and artist at the same time”.
In a gallery, as Kwok knows first-hand, not just the collection of works, but the experience of viewing them is highly curated: “the lighting, how you walk, what you see first” is carefully designed. Online, viewers come to the artworks on their own terms: “the audience has a lot of autonomy to decide which one they want to go into first, and how long they want to spend there”. You can dip in and out, to “kill time”, immerse yourself or return to a specific work, all on your own terms.
Kwok notes that her friends always focus on the website side of the project, rather than the Instagram, perhaps because a website hosting art pieces feels slightly more familiar than an Instagram account. “We always feel like these digital platforms are not physical, but actually they do have a physical impact. How we scroll, and move our eyes and fingers, that is sensational as well … all of this is related to our brain and our physical body. So it’s actually a sensational experience, which we tried to emphasise when we put it together.”
Image from Say to Day – the collaboration between Ying Kwok and artist Yutaka Inagawa
The viewers’ various preconceptions and real-time responses are written into the fabric of Inagawa and Kwok’s intentions. “This project is not just the outcome; it is also a process. We’re showing a selection, but the selection is loose, so that people can see really see the process, and the relationship between the website and the construction and creation.”
Particularly interesting is Kwok and Inagawa’s consciousness of how one’s daily life and own experiences colour a perception of Say to Day. The project plays on the fact that one knows how to “scroll” on a website. It directs the viewer vertically or horizontally depending on the tab being explored, subverting expectations of website navigation.
Instagram posts sometimes feature multiple images, and other times have no more than the cover image. It exposes the digital literacy that we have amassed through exposure to the internet.
Viewing these artworks employs the same codes and behaviours as checking our emails, looking at social media, or using Google. It mirrors the way our daily lives play out online: “A message [might] pop up, a notification from an email, a WhatsApp. It is not like a conventional experience where we took a chunk of time out from everything else and focused on the art experience. It is so interconnected and there are so many different sequences and orders that you can engage with.”
by Connie de Pelet
Find out more about say-to-day here
Find the project on Instagram here @say.to.day